A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE riddle of the international situation is not to be read fully or accurately yet. No one knows what further demands, if any, Herr Hitler has to make, or on whom. Mean- while I reproduce an estimate of the situation by a very com- petent—and orthodox Nazi—German. According to him Herr Hitler means what he says when he declares he has no further territorial demands in Europe ; he has none ; countries like Switzerland can sleep easy ; and no visible cause of war between Germany and Britain or France exists ; the Polish Corridor is to find an ingenious solution ; a vast motor road will " fly-over " the Corridor, thus connecting East Prussia physically with the rest of the Reich (as a matter of fact a similar suggestion, but for a railway rather than a road, was made years ago) ; Germany, of course, must have South-Eastern Europe for her market, and the colonial question must be settled sooner or later by negotiation, as it no doubt can be. If that survey, coming from a German well qualified to voice the policy of the typical Nazi, does in fact represent Nazi policy and Herr Hitler's, a working accommodation in Europe should not be unattainable. It may not be altogether on the lines we should choose, but, at any rate, it gives no excuse for war.
* * " By far the ablest administrator on the Treasury Bench " is the description an experienced Parliamentarian, formerly a colleague of Sir John Anderson, gives me of the new Lord Privy Seal. An appraising survey of the Bench in question might lead a cynic to murmur that this is measured praise, but it was meant to be high praise, and there is no doubt that it is fully merited. Sir John has had a remarkably varied career, and he has held no post in which he has not been a marked success. That does not mean necessarily that he can be counted on to make a marked success of Civilian Defence, for he has to clear up a considerable mess, carry through a vast amount of complex co-ordination between different Government Departments and between Whitehall and local authorities, and to build up an executive machine out of nothing. He may almost be said to be risking his Ministerial career before he enters on it, and it speaks well for his moral courage that he should do that open-eyed. If he does succeed he will be marked for considerable advancement. Sir John was elected for the Scottish Univer- sities as a National Conservative. He might I think be ticketed with equal accuracy as a Left Wing Conservative or a Right Wing Liberal (if there is any difference). * * * * Mr. Chamberlain has had at least once in the recent past to protest publicly against the suggestion that he has Fascist sympathies, and there is, in fact, nothing in his public career to suggest that he is anything but a genuine democrat. But he has undeniably permitted himself one or two unconsidered utterances well calculated to lend some colour to the charge. When, for example, in the House on Tuesday, Mr. Attlee made the criticism, perfectly fair in an Opposition leader, that the peace at Munich represented a great defeat for this country and France and the cause of law and order, the Prime Minister reproved him for saying such a thing publicly even if he thought it, adding that " it is not one of the charac- teristics of the totalitarian States, at any rate, that they are accustomed to foul their own nests." It is not, in fact, one of the characteristics of the totalitarian States to permit a word of criticism of their Government—to permit, that is to say, any vestige of that system of discussion and decision which is the very basis of democratic government. Let a Government, for its own convenience and shelter, succeed in conferring on itself immunity from Parliamentary and public criticism and we shall in a single stride have passed from democracy to Fascism. It is quite certain that the Prime Minister did not mean what his words, on any ordinary interpretation, imply. * * * * • The scare created in the United States by the broadcast of a highly topical and localised version of Mr. Wells' War of the Worlds interests me chiefly as an example of the force of suggestibility. The voice in the studio announced that the Martians were advancing through New Jersey, and promptly a number of what would normally, I suppose, have been accepted as credible witnesses, reported that they had actually seen them. Similarly, and nearer home, Mr. Conan Doyle's missing python (or its indistinguishable twin) was this week sighted by a number of honest and truthful citizens over a considerable area, though it turned out in the end never to have moved from a comfortable concealment in its owner's chimney. It is, of course, the Russians in England in 194 (or the angels at Mons) over again. And rather less relevantly it reminds me of the barrister who was asked whether under English law a man might marry his deceased widow's niece. " Ah, that," he replied portentously, " is a singularly nice point ; but I've known a case." * * * There is a casual paragraph in Mr. Lloyd George's new book on the Peace Conference which acquires a peculiar appositeness at the moment. Writing of the allocation of mandates for the German colonies Mr. Lloyd George notes that Canada remained the only British Dominion without any extraneous responsibilities :
" Personally [he writes] I regretted the disinclination of her statesmen and her people then to share in the direct responsi- bilities of Empire. I had been of the opinion that Canada might undertake the control and administration of the British West Indian islands on behalf of the Empire. Those beautiful and fertile islands were—and still are—suffering from the neglect which is inevitable in an immense and scattered estate needing care and capital, not only for its full development but even to prevent its falling into decay. Canada has n■I tropical or semi-tropical territory, and I thought the under- taking might interest the Canadian people."
Sir Robert Borden at Paris was not responsive to Mr. Lloyd George's suggestion. The idea of encouraging the transfer of small outlying colonies to the self-governing Dominion nearest them is worth considering, all the same. Janus.
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